A photographer has recently gone viral after responding to an outraged bride who demanded a refund after seeing that the person she’d hired for her wedding supported the Black Lives Matter movement.
Screenshots of the conversation shared between photographer Shakira Rochelle and the unnamed wife-to-be have blown up on Twitter, and have inspired many users to publicly praise Rochelle for expertly handling the situation.
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The exchange all began when Rocelle shared this post to her professional Instagram page.
“Shakira Rochelle Photography stands in solidarity with the black community,” the caption reads. “The black lives matter movement has my endless support.”
While the post garnered over 5,600 likes from her followers, the bride in question clearly did not appreciate Rochelle’s declaration of support.
After viewing the post, the bride sent a long text to Rochelle explaining that she and her betrothed have decided they won’t be requiring her services at their wedding.
In the message, she demands a full refund of the deposit they put down, citing that they “cannot bring [themselves] to support anyone who is so outspoken on matters that do not concern them as well as someone t hat does not believe that ALL lives matter.”
Rather than stop there, the bride continues her rant, even going so far to take a shot at Rochelle’s mental stability.
She emphasizes that they would be “truly embarrassed to have [Rochelle] and [their] event and feel that [she isn’t] stable enough to complete the job.”
“Please let me know when and how we can expect our refund and we are requesting to be relieved from our contract,” she finishes. “Thanks.”
Then it was time for Rochelle to respond, and she knew exactly what to say to shut this bride *down*.
After explaining that the bride’s deposit was “non-refundable”, she wishes her “a life time of growth” before finishing off with the real mic-dropper:
“I would like to thank you for your donation to Black Lives Matter.”
That’s right — the bride’s non-refundable deposit is now being donated to support the Black Lives Matter movement.
Clearly, this was not the response this furious bride was looking for, and she promised that their attorney will be in touch with Rochelle.
On Tuesday, Twitter user Q posted the snaps of the text messages and simply captioned the post, “I love it here.”
The post positively exploded online and has since been shared more than 174,000 times, as well as receiving nearly 1 million likes.
“My favorite flavor of shade,” this user commented. “Poised & witty with a lil white tears for a lil razzle dazzle.”
Another added, “I’m sure this makes it easier to weed out racist possible clients that she wouldn’t want to work for anyway. Win/win.”
As far as the bride’s empty threat of legal action, many users also pointed out that she has absolutely no case here.
“White people love to say ‘you’ll be hearing from my attorney’ especially when they don’t actually have an attorney,” this user wrote, while another added, “Literally what deposit is usually refundable anyways? Like ‘bride’ sounding real ignorant, the groom might wanna rethink her.”
One person perhaps best summed up the entire situation by writing, “This breed of white women thinks contracts don’t apply to them if they make enough of a fuss.”
After receiving plenty of messages of support and inquiries into Rochelle’s business, Q shared her information in a follow-up tweet.
Judging from the response online, it would appear Rochelle won’t be missing this outraged bride’s business one bit. In fact, it seems to be like she’s going to be just fine.
